"Didn't they make the words fly?" laughed Mrs. McCormick. "My dear, you and the doctor and I were quite left behind."
"It seemed that way," said Ernestine, trying to keep her chin from quivering.
When she returned to the library, Dr. Parkman and Karl were evidently just closing a discussion for Karl was saying, heatedly: "Now just let me manage things in my own way!"
The doctor seemed reluctant to leave. Ernestine was alone with him for a minute in the hall, and she was sure he started to say something once and then changed it to something else. But when he did leave, it was with merely the conventional goodbye.
She walked slowly back to the library. Karl was sitting in the Morris chair, his elbow upon one arm of it, his hand to his forehead. His whole bearing had changed; it was as though he had let down. Again it seemed as though in the last hour he had been intoxicated, and this the depression to follow that kind of exuberance. But he looked up as he heard her, and smiled a little, a wan, tired smile. She was beside him in an instant.
"You seemed so happy this afternoon, dear," she said, stroking his hair, "and now you seem so tired. Aren't you well, Karl?" she asked, a little timidly.
His face then mirrored a dissatisfaction, a sort of resentment.
"I talked like a fool this afternoon!" he said gruffly.
"Why, no, dear, only—not quite like yourself."
"Well, the fact of the matter is"—this after a minute's thought—"I have a frightful headache. I suppose it comes from this trouble with my eyes. I thought I wasn't going to be able to keep up, and in my efforts to do it, I"—he paused and then laughed rather harshly—"overdid it."